Monday, 19 January 2015

A DISQUIETING TRAVELOGUE

Festa
Mobile were one of the many Italian prog bands of the early seventies
who disbanded soon after the release of an excellent debut album in
1973. The line-up featured Renato Baldassarri (vocals), Francesco
Boccuzzi (bass, keyboards), Giovanni Boccuzzi (keyboards), Alessio
Alba (guitar) and Maurizio Cobianchi (drums). The Boccuzzi brothers
later formed another band called Il Baricentro, more “jazz-rock
oriented”. On “Diario di viaggio della Festa Mobile” the band
showcase a great musicianship although the sound quality from the
recording sessions is not flawless. Festa Mobile are often compared
with BMS, PFM, Le Orme and other “classic” Italian prog bands:
you can find here many influences ranging from classical music to
jazz, from British prog rock to Italian folklore, but the final
result is original enough and it’s definitely worth listening to.

“Diario
di viaggio della Festa Mobile” is a concept album where the band
describes in music and words the experience of a company of comedians
returning home after the celebrations in honour of the new king of a
far (imaginary) country, Hon. The opener “La corte di Hon” (Hon’s
court) is introduced by a dizzy piano pattern, then a frenzied rhythm
section and vocals come in... The lyrics depict the atmosphere of
false joy put up by the oppressive power of the new king... “Hon’s
celebration lasts hundred days / For a hundred days the sun won’t
set / Hon sits on his throne / The moving feast lives on / It seems a
celebration of love / But it’s just a false mask... Peace seems to
rule / But it’s war that rules... It seemed a celebration of love /
But it was a celebration of death...”.

On
the second track “Canto” (Song), the comedians end their
performance in honour of Hon singing a song inspired by their
extraordinary travelling experience and by the contrast between an
ideal world full of love and peace and the cruel reality... “I sing
the colours of time and the rhythm of the wind / That are living in
me... I sing the story of happy people living in ingenuity... I sing
the future I dream / A new day that’s lost and will never come...”.
The rhythm is complex and fiery while the vocals depict a dream that
turns into a nightmare...

On
the third track “Aristea” the mood is more relaxed, almost
mystic. After the celebration, our “heros” are on the way home.
They stop to rest in a mysterious abbey where the great priestess
Aristea silently looks at their hands and reveals them a prophecy...
“You will go there / Where the sun doesn’t shine / Where men do
not know happiness...”. So they become aware that freedom is in
danger even in their homeland. Well, you can feel almost a sense of
impending doom at the end of the track when a “nervous” rhythm
section comes in...

The
fourth track is about despair and mercy. “Ljalja” tells about the
meeting with a young girl crying in a country ravaged by war. She was
still clasping her dead son in her hands, she was still a child but
without a future... “Then slowly she smiled / She couldn’t speak
anymore...”.

Festa Mobile

The
long, complex last track “Ritorno” (Return) tells of the return
and of the fear that the protagonists feel since they are aware that
what they have seen during their journey could happen in their
homeland too... It’s like waking up with a nightmare still hanging
on: “We were travelling back to home / And the souvenirs in our
minds seemed made of stone / Red stone from the innocent’s blood /
People who died in the name of their truth / Martyrs of Hon and of
the dream of a new reality / Under a different sky we’re looking at
home again... Where sooner or later Hon will come / With the rules of
the strongest...”.